


Three Kings

by wisdomeagle



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Emily of New Moon - L. M. Montgomery, Stargate SG-1
Genre: A picture of the author's id, Community: xgenchallenge, Cross-Generation Relationship, F/M, Father Figures, Grief, Not a Crossover, Off-screen Character Death, UST, owwwwwww
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-05-26
Updated: 2005-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-18 11:16:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4704107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisdomeagle/pseuds/wisdomeagle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>to serve and protect, to love and to cherish, to keep watch over their flocks by night</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Kings

**Author's Note:**

> For the xgenchallenge. I couldn't decide which to write, so I wrote all three. Each piece (and all of them are short) stands on its own if you aren't familiar with the other fandoms. The "underage" warning applies only to the third piece, which is (canon compliant) Emily/Dean.

gold

It would have been his and Lydia's twenty-fifth anniversary. Hammond didn't expect anyone else to remember -- except for Jacob, his buddies from that time were locked away in their own sinecures, far less interesting than his, living off tiny pensions and remembering their own silver anniversaries -- some with their wives, some, like him, as widowers.

O'Neill knew, having been told too much the night after Kowalski died, but he kept the remembrance to himself. If Dr. Jackson had known, he'd have offered wordy, well-meant condolences, which was why Dr. Jackson didn't know. And Captain Carter, staying late in her lab -- she knew. Twenty-five years earlier, her long hair in a braid, she'd carried trays of cheese and sausages at his wedding. Among the blue uniforms, her long pink sundress had seemed -- had seemed as out of place as an old man among the best and the brightest of a new generation. He knocked on the door to her lab.

"General, sir."

"As you were, Captain -- what do you have there?"

"Not sure, sir. One of the teams found it on P4X--"

"Keep up the good work." They had this conversation at least once a week. Her smile never dimmed, her intense gaze at her work never wavered. "If you get tired, feel free to go home. No use working yourself to death. There's plenty of work ahead of y -- us."

She looked up from the device she was examining and flashed him her brightest smile. "Thank you, sir. I just want to make sure I deserve the position you gave me."

"The position you earned, Captain." 

She smiled at him again. "Do you really come here to make sure I don't work too hard?"

Hammond smiled at her. "I like to know what my people are doing." And his heart quaked strangely -- he thought of his mother's heart attack and then realized that the burden of protecting Samantha Carter from the dangers of the universe was enough to make any man's heart weak. She was one of _his people_ and that made her his responsibility, and it made him care, more than he ever had when she was Jacob's only daughter, the pride of her father's old age, the young woman who needed a career boost and had all the right connections.

"Hey -- sir?"

"What is it?" he asked, his voice softening a little.

"I happened to be looking at your file, and I noticed that today is Lydia's and your anni--"

"Don't, please. It's fine."

"If you ever need someone to talk to," she said, and then her voice lowered, as if the impropriety of her offer had just sunk in, "well, let me know. I'm here for you, sir." She saluted sharply and bent over her work again.

He rested his hand on her shoulder for a moment, then, with a sigh, "Goodnight, Sam." 

Before he turned to go, though, he bent and kissed the top of her golden head, then hurried out of her lab too quickly to hear her whisper, "Goodnight, sir. Happy anniversary." By the time he reached the elevator, his eyes were shiny with tears.

incense

Willow's feet folded beneath her and her fingers rested lightly on the censor. When she closed her eyes, her magical pose was as elegant and effortless as any of the witches' he'd known in England. But with her eyes open, he could see strands of black lace their way through her irises, showing that the magic -- the magic he had taught her -- had claimed her body and was worming its way into her soul.

Willow damaged was more frightening than even a Slayer at her worst, and though the memory of his Slayer, one month dead, always gave Giles a tremor of pain, the look in Willow's eyes pained him more.

"Giles!" Her voice was sharp with anger. "Are you going to help me or should I just go call Tara?"

Reluctantly, he took his place across from her on the floor, noting with discomfort that the ache in his knees as he bent was growing more acute. The simultaneous pain of his arthritis and Willow's magic, potent and intoxicating, made him breathless for a moment, but the agony subsided and he felt himself slipping easily into the space where he could call on the elements, where he could pluck fire and air from the ether and bind them to Willow's water and earth, setting the circle where they could properly divine.

With one hand she waved the censor, letting incense fill the Magic Box, making the store's atmosphere seem less authentic for the heavy, obvious aroma. The other hand she rounded, and her fingertips rested gently on Giles's left palm. Though the magic was powerful, the movements were precise, and Giles wished again -- too late, far too late -- that he had taught her, could claim her as his pupil.

But even then, pupil would have surpassed teacher, and he didn't think he could endure that any more than he could Buffy's growing up -- less perhaps, because he cared for Willow -- because he cared for her, deeply and impossibly, with a love that made it almost physically painful to feel her pull away from him into deeper magics and darker forces, that made him grab her shoulders, shake her, till her eyes snapped open, clear once again.

She rolled her eyes at him, grabbing at scattered herbs and crystals. "Why'd you do that?"

"I worry about you," he said, looking at the ceiling absently. "It's not safe for you to be doing spells of this level."

"Aw, don't worry," Willow said with a smile that broke his heart. "I'm totally fine. I promise, cross my heart, that the minute things seem out of control, you'll be the first to know, 'kay?"

He opened his mouth, but the words wouldn't come, and so he watched helplessly while Willow gathered up her belongings. She gave him another smile before she left, then, bending to kiss his forehead, she told him goodnight.

A braver man than he would have shaken her again, told her firmly that she needed to stop, kissed her till she had to listen -- but Giles had none of this courage, and he sat on the floor of his magic shop, wishing desperately that he had.

myrrh

Emily Starr -- his star, still at her zenith -- came into his view dancing and bending from time to time to pick a flower. She was bringing him a bouquet, red and blue, which she handed to him with strange solemnity. "I brought you this, Dean."

"Thank you, Star," he told her fondly. 

"I know red and blue are _common_ colors," she told him. "But I thought they'd be right for a bouquet to celebrate it being summer, finally!"

He smiled at her. "Indeed. They're lovely colors, though not my favorites, you know."

"What are your favorite colors?"

"Black," he said, touching her head, "and white." He touched her forehead and then jerked his hand away before he let the gesture turn into a caress.

"It's a pity flowers don't come in hues like those, or I'd pick you another bouquet right now! But let's walk awhile -- and not talk -- and just look at the summer. I feel as if I _could_ love summer best -- the sky is so deep blue, and the grass is so tall -- but after all, don't you love spring better, clouds that are so peculiar and change so much, and grass just starting to grow?"

"I think I prefer winter," Dean said, allowing just a note of bitterness to creep into his voice. "It seems more like home. Though perhaps that's why I feel the need to be away winters -- there comes a time when home isn't very welcoming. "

"I could never feel at home in winter, _really_ ," Emily said, and she demonstrated the impossibility of her acquaintance with that season by twirling round twice, in a way that Dean noted with satisfaction brought a healthy red blush to her cheeks.

"And pray God that you never do."

Their ramble was a good one, full of odd discoveries in forgotten corners of the wood. When it was time for Emily to return to her Aunts, Dean felt very much like cursing the whole species of female relatives, but instead bowed politely to his lady and wished her well.

With an impulsive look in her eyes, Emily took Dean's hands in hers and kissed them, one after another, and Dean felt a queer sensation in the area of his heart that quickly faded when she told him, "That's because I love you best of all the grown-up people I know, and almost best of all my friends."

With the _almost_ aching in his breast, Dean turned to go, aware as he went that he hobbled more than ever, and that the flowers his Star had blessed him with began to fade as soon as she went away from him.


End file.
